Rome, NY - Prison food “czar” Howard Dean and his supervisors felt Dean was underpaid for his work at the Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome.

So they concocted a plan to boost Dean’s pay without increasing his salary, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and state Inspector General Joseph Fisch said Tuesday.

With his supervisors’ knowledge, Dean, 64, of Locke, falsified hotel invoices, faked travel records and submitted fraudulent timesheets — duping the state and its taxpayers out of $500,000, the two state officials said.

Dean submitted timesheets for five-day work weeks — Monday through Friday — even though he admitted he didn’t work a single Friday for 17 years, they said.

“This certainly gives new meaning to casual Fridays,” DiNapoli said.

“One can liken this to a robbery without a gun, with his supervisors as lookouts,” Fisch said.

Dean ran the state prison’s Food Production Center in Rome, but senior management at the state Department of Correctional Services designated Auburn, then Albany, as Dean’s official job location so Dean could be reimbursed for the 88-mile commute from his Cayuga County home, DiNapoli and Fisch said. Supervisors also assigned Dean a state vehicle — in direct violation of agency policy — so taxpayers paid for his gas and tolls.

Dean lied about staying at the Quality Inn in Rome, charging the state for 75 nights that weren’t used, and “double-dipped” on food expense reports, eating meals at the prison but charging taxpayers for meal reimbursements, according to DiNapoli and Fisch.

Over his 17-year career, Dean cheated the state out of $497,453, the officials said. Before he retired in August 2008, Dean made $112,743 a year.

“Dean blatantly defrauded taxpayers while management looked the other way,” DiNapoli.The fraud continued under four different supervisors, most of whom signed off on Dean’s expense reports and vouchers, DiNapoli and Fisch said. At least one, former Chief Fiscal Officer Russell DiBello, defended giving “leeway” to Dean, saying Dean was underpaid, did a good job and was the only person who knew the food service process. Dean helped establish the Food Production Center, which prepares food shipped to prisons across the state.

“I knew the responsibilities of his job were such, his pay was such, that he had a heart attack at that time, and it was a stressful job he had,” DiBello told investigators. “The comptroller’s requirements are really secondary as long as what you’re doing is reasonable, responsible and consistent with the mission of the agency.”

DiBello supervised Dean from 1999 to 2007 and described him as “czar” of the cook-chill program. DiBello, who lives outside of Albany, retired from DOCS in 2007.

“In corrections prisons, food service is critical,” DiBello said. “When you have an employee who is capable of doing those things, you tend to give him some flexibility. That’s what I did. I didn’t bird dog him.”

“Now nobody was agreeing or accepting the fact that he was doing something fraudulent,” he continued. “If a guy charges travel time and shouldn’t, that’s a violation. But the bigger picture is, he saved a lot of money for the department. Nobody likes to see anybody defraud the state, but on the other hand, the guy had a big responsibility, and he didn’t get paid a lot for that responsibility.”

DiBello admitted supervisors didn’t keep close watch over Dean.

“We were really absentee supervisors,” said DiBello, who worked out of Albany. “I supervised him from 80 miles away. I wasn’t there to see when he worked or didn’t work. When he sent in the timesheet, I signed it.”

Dean declined to comment on DiNapoli’s findings.

“I’ll comment when I see the report,” he said Tuesday when reached at home.

But Dean told state investigators he never received anything he wasn’t entitled to.

“You are questioning my integrity and I never did anything dishonest that I knew of....Correctional Services didn’t give me one red cent more than I honestly earned,” Dean told investigators, according to DiNapoli and Fisch’s report.

“While management may have looked the other way in the past, that stopped when Commissioner Fischer took over in 2007,” DOCS spokesman Erik Kriss said. “He revoked Mr. Dean’s travel status and changed Mr. Dean’s official work station.”

To prevent similar cases in the future, Fischer is making all supervisors justify unusual work station assignments. He also is drafting policy language to clarify that state vehicles are not for personal use and to require employees who see fraud or abuse to report it, Kriss said.

Dean is facing possible felony criminal charges that could include conspiracy, falsifying business records, defrauding the government, larceny and official misconduct. His case has been referred to Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara.

The comptroller’s office also is looking to recalculate Dean’s pension. He receives $57,381 a year, but that is based on a work week that was 20 percent fraudulent, Fisch said.

“The broader question is what else is going on at the agency that tolerated this, and is it going on elsewhere?” DiNapoli asked.The comptroller’s office is trying to answer those questions with a second audit.